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A beautifully simple guide to the relationship skills we all so deeply need, but most of us don’t know how to access. This book belongs firmly on the curriculum for creating a more peaceful world.
Dr Scilla Elworthy, three times Nobel Peace Prize nominee
This book is a tool box. Keep it close at hand and dip in often.
Jim Carter OBE and Imelda Staunton CBE, actors
Brilliant, easy to understand, and applies with equal force in personal and professional contexts.
Sharif Shivji QC, barrister specialising in commercial law
Why weren’t we taught this at school? introduces Needs Understanding, a fresh approach for finding creative solutions and building relationships at home and at work. It’s based on one simple idea: we’re all on a quest to meet our underlying human needs – such as belonging, knowing we matter, and fun.
Whether you are trying to make a tricky decision, communicate more effectively, parent the way you want to, or make a difference in the world, Needs Understanding can help.
- Understand the ‘fingerprint needs’ that drive your behaviour
- Discover 10 ways you listen that alienate other people, and what to do instead
- Stop blaming yourself and others, and fix what’s going on underneath
- Find creative solutions to difficult problems by ‘walking around the mountain’
- Empower yourself to change the world.
Alice Sheldon is the creator of Needs Understanding and shares it globally with individuals and organizations.
The author is really onto something with the contents of this book... everyone Needs Understanding.
I love the simple and down-to-earth explanations and illustrations, and easy-to-understand concepts such as 'fingerprint needs' and the 'cooking pot of needs and solutions'. I really do wish I'd been taught this stuff at school - it would have made my world a happier one. This is a book for everyone and its message has the potential to radically transform marriages, families, organisations, societies into relationships where all people thrive.
— Amazon
Loved the clarity and wisdom in this book!
This week I used it for support in writing an email for a court case, to apologise to a friend, to stay kind to myself in the face of some punishing thoughts and to help my parents communicate better between themselves.
It really is more useful than my Maths and English lessons!
— Amazon
This book is a life changer. An introduction to Needs Understanding, it will change the way you think about your behaviour, everyone else's behaviour and the conversations we have.
Superbly practical right from the start, I cannot recommend it enough.
A must-read book for 21st century leaders.
— Amazon
This book seems to have serendipitously arrived to answer the questions I’m ready to ask.
It’s so simple yet insightful, offering exercises to help imbed the learning for a smoother authentic and kinder life.
I love the way it has been written with inclusivity high on the agenda.
— Amazon
This has been truly transformational. Particularly a brilliant tool to help navigate the ups & downs of parenting.
— Amazon
I am finding this book a real treasure - it is easy to read, each chapter has a "take home" summary at the end and is divided into wonderfully easy to read small sections. And every section is full of helpful advice. I couldn't recommend this book more highly - it is full of digestible wisdom.
— Amazon
If you would like to transform difficult relationships in your life, have more meaningful interactions with people and have more ease when approaching conflict situations, both with people close to you and with strangers, this book is for you.
— Amazon
The lessons in this book transformed my relationship with my wife and kids. Thank you. There is less shouting in our house. We have more fun together. Everyone is thriving.
— Amazon
Brilliant and thought provoking.
— NetGalley
Alice Sheldon (MA Oxon) is the creator of Needs Understanding.
After a career as a teacher and then as a barrister and head of the Bar’s national pro bono charity, she developed a model for parenting and shared it with hundreds of parents. A Certified Trainer with the Center for Nonviolent Communication, she shares Needs Understanding globally with individuals and organizations.
INTRODUCTION: Why weren’t we taught this at school?
1. The Surprisingly Simple Secret: Understanding the World Through the Lens of Needs
PART ONE: Listen With Empathy
2. How Not to Listen: 10 Things We Say Which Can Alienate People
3. How to Listen: Tools for Building Empathy and Connection
PART TWO: Understand Yourself With Compassion
4. What Makes You Tick?: Getting to Know Your Own Needs
5. How to Unlock Difficult Situations: Extra Tools for Tricky Self-Empathy
PART THREE: Speak to be Heard
6. Connect Through Speaking: Creating Conversations Without Barriers
7. Four Powerful Tools for Speaking: Getting Your Point Across
PART FOUR: Act With Care for Everyone's Needs
8. Your Needs, My Needs, and a New Way Forward: Creating Strategies that Work for Everyone
9. Beyond Right and Wrong: Moving from Opposition to Collaboration
CONCLUSION: Choosing Connection in a Competitive World
A Further Thought: Needs and the Natural World
Appendices
The Author On the Shoulders of Giants: Ideas that have Contributed to Needs Understanding
Acknowledgements
Index of Pause Boxes
Index